Swamp Buggy versus Swamp Donkey

A few years ago, when Kia was introducing the Sportage (compact SUV) they had these really annoying commercials that involved some idiot taking people on swamp rides "welcome to the swamp" - so when I bought my Sportage, it got nicknamed the swamp buggy (I named her Ophelia, yes I'm a geek).
There's been a long debate among canoers - is a moose cow a majestic animal or a swamp donkey?

Thdre's the pretext for the title of this blog... I was driving Wednesday, north of White River, when I saw a beautiful cow on the left hand sideof the road - and I was thinking to myself that it's abnormal to see such a gorgeous creature in the daylight so close to the road - and I had slowed down a bit. About a second later I had a baby moose run right in front of me - and then stop (she saw the car coming the other direction) - well, a THUD ensued. I braked hard, but still hit the poor beast - who then became airborne, and was flung across to the other side of the highway. Fortunately, given the circumstances, she was dead immediately - fortunately for me, I survived. (Ironically, all my other creatures lived through it also - a goldfish, 3 gerbils and a hedgehog lived but a moose died... sigh...) Some lovely people from Edmonton gave me a lift into town and were a HUGE help (people, angels, whichever). So, my car was towed into White River, where I spent the night (after having seen the doctor - sprained wrist, bruises, whiplash). Thursday was a fun day of organising repairs, insurance, police reports... we towed the car into Wawa (about 150km from the collision) where it looks like they're fixing it - because it's such a safe car, and slow impact of a baby moose, it's only about $7,000-$10,000 to repair it. For a moose collision, that's minimal! And it's VERY rare that someone can walk away from such a collision - so I am feeling VERY lucky.

It's amazing the way people all pull together in smaller towns - the folk in White River were really great, as were the people in Wawa - they all heard that I have a wedding to be in this weekend, and worked to make sure it could happen! So I have a rental now, and good pain meds - and am in Hamilton ready for whatever comes next - hopefully something boring!